Shadow Ops: Control Point

by Myke Cole

  “No, I’m going to beat him to death for eating the eyes out of the still-warm corpse of an American soldier!” Fitzy hissed. “And when I’m done, I’m going to teach you some manners.”

  He turned toward Truelove. “Get the hell away from him, needledick. He’s got dues to pay.”

  Truelove dropped Marty and scrambled backward on his skinny buttocks. “Sir, it’s a custom! They do it to honor their dead!”

  The wheels clicked in Britton’s mind. He remembered the young specialist’s burned body in the cash, Therese standing by. Lenko must have died. Oh God, Marty.

  “Good,” Fitzy said, reaching down to grab Marty’s ankle. “You love them so much. You can eat this piece of crap’s eyes right after I kill him.”

  And then he was sputtering, with Britton’s arm locked around his neck. He punched Fitzy hard in the kidney, and the chief warrant officer dropped Marty, grunting.

  “You’ll have to kill me first,” Britton whispered in his ear, then he pivoted his hip, slamming Fitzy face-first into the dirt.

  The chief warrant officer lay there for a moment, stunned. The rest of Shadow Coven stood openmouthed. The MPs started forward, but Fitzy began to rise to his hands and knees. He waved a hand at them, and they stopped, looking askance.

  Fitzy slowly got to his feet, shaking his head. He spit out a tooth, a trail of blood making its way slowly down his cheek. The face above it was scraped raw, mud caking the wound. One eye was already beginning to swell shut.

  “If that’s what you want,” he whispered, “who am I to deny you?”

  He spread his hands, and Britton felt the Suppression take hold as Fitzy started forward. Rage countered the alcohol, making him incredibly fast. He threw a jab at Britton’s face and followed with a kick as soon as Britton had swatted it aside. The boot tip caught him in the thigh, sending him staggering backward, his aching leg buckling under him.

  “You’re fucking dead, you sack of shit,” Fitzy said, advancing. “I tried. I really did. But some people absolutely cannot be taught.” He pumped a right uppercut at Britton’s jaw, but it was a feint. The real blow hammed down from the other hand as Britton caught his right wrist. It collided with his ear, filling his vision with stars and sending him down to the mud again.

  Britton kicked out blindly and caught Fitzy’s ankle. Fitzy cried out in pain and dropped, breaking his fall with a sharp elbow colliding with Britton’s ribs. Britton gulped for oxygen, drowning in nausea as he struggled to pull away from Fitzy’s oppressive weight. The chief warrant officer sprawled on him, smothering him with his bulk. His hands, raw and mud-crusted, found Britton’s throat and began to squeeze. Britton locked his hands on Fitzy’s wrists, shaking left and right, but the chief warrant officer’s grip wouldn’t move. The gulping continued, the nausea intensified, the world shrank to a gray tunnel. The vise constricted until his neck registered only a steady fire that vanished beneath the desperate cry for oxygen.

  Britton hammered his knee upward, finding soft flesh again and again. Fitzy only grunted, then shouted something to the MPs, and then all sight and sound was gone as Britton’s lungs cried out for air. He’s really going to kill me. He’s really that crazy. This is how I die.

  And then, suddenly, the pressure was gone. Pain awakened him. His neck was a ring of fire, his head stuffed with molten lead. Fitzy’s weight lifted off him. Britton’s ears filled with the sound of roaring blood, his eyes with blurry light. He rolled onto his stomach and retched, struggling to his hands and knees as vision returned.

  The roaring sound in his ears resolved into words. Fitzy’s voice. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  Truelove answered, stumbling over the words. “I can’t let you do this, sir.”

  Britton stood, his vision slowly coming clear. Fitzy had backed up to the corner of the chow-hall tent. Before him, bright tusks glittering, lurched the embalmed corpse of the silver boar from the OC. Truelove stood behind it, hand outstretched. Fitzy kicked at the animated corpse experimentally, then jerked his boot back, the sole gouged by the sharp, metallic bristles.

  “You’re an idiot, Rictus,” Fitzy said, extending a hand. “I can switch that magic off.”

  “But then you’d switch mine on,” Britton slurred through the clearing fog. He maneuvered around Fitzy’s shoulder, just enough for the Master Suppressor to see him, but not close enough for a strike. “And I will cut off your fucking head just as soon as I can open a gate…sir.” He spit out the last word.

  The boar lurched forward another step, shambling on sharp metallic hooves. Its mouth worked, chunks of hardened yellow embalming fluid flaking out of the corners.

  Fitzy jerked his head from the boar to Britton, then up to Truelove and back again.

  His eyes widened and his jaw trembled.

  Fear, Britton realized. Holy crap, this is Fitzy afraid.

  Fitzy’s gaze sawed left and right. Britton followed his eyes. The MPs were gone. Fitzy turned to Downer and Richards, standing wide-eyed outside the OC’s entrance. “You two! Give me a goddamned hand here!”

  Neither of them moved.

  Fitzy’s eyes narrowed again as he turned back to Truelove. “I swear to God you will fucking pay for this. You all will. This is gross insubordination. This is fucking mutiny. You are all going to die.”

  Truelove swallowed. Britton felt a cold lump in his stomach. The ATTD throbbed in his chest. He knew it was no lie.

  But he would be damned if he’d show that to Fitzy. “That’d be fine, sir. Now you run along and have a great day.”

  He motioned to Truelove, who backed the boar off a couple of steps.

  Fitzy took a hesitant step away, skirting the boar. He looked back at them, meeting each of their eyes in turn.

  “I don’t know what the hell you all think you’ve accomplished,” he said, “but I assure you you’ve just earned yourself a world of hurt.”

  He spun on his heel and stalked down the track, leaving Shadow Coven in stunned silence behind him.

  They stared at Fitzy’s shrinking back until it was swallowed by the darkness. Then Britton blew out his breath, and Truelove sat down abruptly, the boar collapsing in a broken heap.

  “Oh shit,” the Necromancer whined into his hands, “we’re so fucking dead. I can’t believe I just did that.”

  Downer stared at him, mouth opening and closing.

  “I’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Richards said, and took off after Fitzy.

  “You saved my life,” Britton managed. “Thank you.”

  “You can thank me graveside,” Truelove said. “Do you honestly think command is going to tolerate mutinous Probe contractors? Oh my God, we are so fucking dead.”

  “He was going to kill Marty,” Britton offered.

  “Marty’s a fucking Goblin!” Truelove said. “Do you really think anyone cares other than us?”

  “Wait,” Britton said, looking around. “Where is Marty?”

  “The MPs took him,” Downer said, her voice stunned.

  “Took him where?” Britton asked, panic rising in his throat.

  “Where the hell do you think?” Truelove asked, tears streaming down his face. “They’re going to fire him. He’s as good as dead. We didn’t accomplish a goddamn thing.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  RELEASE

  What is magic, really? It is the monkey wrench in the works. It is the great leveler. Suddenly, without warning, the kid who bags your groceries is stronger than an infantry division. The homeless guy you ignored for years has the power to cure your scoliosis. The criminal on death row can stop a forest fire or save a cruise ship trapped in a storm. Magic is the death of social structure. It has taken the completed puzzle, broken the pieces apart, and tossed them in the air. It’s up to us to put them back together again. The new picture they form will be very different from the old one.

  —Johnathan Tillich, Magic and Society, Part VI

  Public Radio Network

  Britton took off running,
not looking back.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Downer shouted after him.

  He didn’t answer. To save Marty. To finish this.

  His boots pounded the semifrozen mud toward the cash. The scenery passed on either side of him, a blur of converted trailers, piled sandbags, soldiers turning their heads to take in the Probe contractor hurtling past them.

  The cash was quieter than usual, but Britton didn’t fail to notice the MPs patrolling the tent entrance. They noted his hurried entry but made no move to stop him as he burst through the flaps. The cash floor was equally quiet and guarded. Another small knot of MPs stood ready beneath the signs to the dental unit.

  That’s over where Marty works. That’s where they took him.

  What did he think he was going to do? Charge in there and carry Marty away? They’d shoot him dead. No, my magic will stop them. The feeling of power was heady, he could crush them if he wanted. He really could save Marty.

  And drop dead in the mud, clutching a chest that slowly hemorrhaged purple.

  The ATTD has got to come out. Therese.

  No, she wasn’t ready.

  Scylla, then. But how could he?

  But there was no time to ponder it. Scylla was the known quantity. Therese wasn’t sure. Truelove’s words echoed in his mind. They’re going to fire him. He’s as good as dead.

  There was no time. If he was going to save Marty, he had to do this now.

  Britton burst from the cash tent, making for the SASS.

  Night was the SASS’s slow time. The enrollees were all in their bunks beneath the corrugated-metal domes of the Quonset huts. The guards lazed in the parapets and towers, casting half-lidded gazes out into the semidarkness. Britton forced himself to measure his stride, to walk casually toward the gate, hands in his pockets. He briefly considered trying to whistle and abandoned the idea. The knot of panic passing between his stomach and throat wouldn’t permit it.

  It felt like it took an eternity to walk all the way to the gate at that maddeningly casual pace. Every step was a delay during which Marty’s captors could push him outside the wire, thank him for his service, and leave him to die. He couldn’t let that happen.

  But neither could he hurry, not if his plan was to work.

  One of the gate guards squinted in the darkness, began to salute, then dropped his arm when he realized that Britton was a contractor. “Good evening, sir,” he said.

  “Evening,” Britton said, doing his utmost to keep his voice even, unconcerned. “What’s going on?” It came out as a rasping croak, his words quaking. Oh God, they’ll know. They’ll know something’s wrong.

  “’Nother day, ’nother dollar,” the guard drawled, unconcerned. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Keystone, Umbra Coven. I used to be an enrollee here.” Britton’s confidence grew.

  “I recognize you, sir. What’s going on?”

  “Chief Warrant Officer Fitzsimmons wanted me to drop something off with Major Salamander. Just take a second,” he said, flashing his badge.

  He had nothing to drop off. What if the guard asked to see whatever it was? He would say it was a message. But what message? His mind spun as he tried to think of something, but the guard was already nodding and sliding the barrier out of the way.

  Britton swallowed and trotted through, trying to look unhurried as he made his way toward the Quonset huts. The pillbox hung in his peripheral vision, two Suppressors on duty, one seated on a camp chair just outside the door.

  Britton risked a look over his shoulder. The gate guards were already out of view. The guards in the towers barely spared him a glance, their bored eyes cast outward.

  Britton broke off and veered to his right, moving toward the pillbox. One Suppressor stood in the darkness, his face illuminated by the tip of his cigarette. The other leaned against the wall, camp chair tilted back. He rocked it forward so it stood straight and waved distractedly. “Hey.”

  “Hey, guy,” Britton said, forcing himself to slow down. “Life in the fast lane, eh?”

  “No doubt,” the Suppressor said, “what’s going o…”

  But Britton had crossed the last few steps between them and snapped open a gate behind him. The Suppressor began to turn, seeing the static shimmer of the light in his peripheral vision, as Britton planted a boot in his chest and kicked him through, sending him to sprawl on the floor of Portcullis’s loading bay.

  The other Suppressor had only begun to turn toward him as Britton pivoted on his leg, rocketing his foot up and over to send it crashing into his temple. The Suppressor crumpled, unconscious, the lit cigarette going dark in the mud. Britton looked back at the Suppressor he’d kicked through the gate. “I’m sorry,” he said. The Suppressor only gawked at him, jaw gaping, from the other side of the gate, propped up on one elbow on the concrete floor.

  Then Britton shut the gate, and the man was gone.

  “Sir? Hello?” A call came from one of the towers beside the gatehouse, quickly followed by “Oh, Christ!” A searchlight lit, the beam dancing crazily across the ground before him. Voices began to call out.

  Britton turned and pounded on the rusted door. “Damn it, Scylla! Wake the hell up!”

  Her voice came from the other side, as calm and poised as if she had been awake, standing there the entire time. “I’m awake, Oscar. Thanks for coming.”

  The first bullet whined over his shoulder to tear a chunk from the concrete wall. Britton threw open a gate and crouched behind it as an alarm sounded. Bullets whistled toward him, whisking through the gate and out over the star-dappled field where he’d sheltered in Nelson’s barn what felt like an eternity ago. Boots thudded in the mud, coming toward him. More shouting.

  He tried to sneak a look around the gate to see what he faced, but was driven quickly back by the increasing hail of bullets around him. What the hell was taking Scylla so long? Maybe she had lied. Maybe she couldn’t help him. Maybe she was cowering inside her concrete prison and waiting for him to die.

  The boots thudded closer, almost on top of him by then. He could see the doors to the Quonset huts off to his left slamming open. Swift stood there, Peapod, Tsunami, and some of the other enrollees behind him, gaping. Major Salamander emerged from another door, his body already wreathed in bright orange flame. Britton felt a current reach out, snaking into his own, rolling it back, snapping the gate shut.

  He crouched in the mud, eyes closed, waiting for the bullets to tear him apart.

  And then the pillbox disintegrated.

  One moment, Britton had crouched between his gate and the firmness of the concrete wall. The next, his back was coated in blowing concrete dust, and the rusted scraps of pitted metal that had once been the pillbox door. Scylla stood in the midst of the ruin, her pale mouth stretched in a vulpine smile. Her current was wild, intense. Britton felt it surging all around him, nearly suffocating in its enormity. The boots stopped pounding, the steady thrum of the bullets ceased. Britton’s magic flooded back into him as the Suppression dropped. He stood and looked around.

  The first thing he saw was Salamander, sprawling in the mud, clutching at his stomach, his flame out. A company of guards writhed in the dirt before him, also grasping their abdomens, shrieking. “My, oh my.” Scylla smiled. “I have been waiting for this for a very, very long time.”

  Swift turned, pushed back against his fellow inmates, and retreated inside the hut, slamming the door behind him.

  “Scylla,” Britton cried. “Please. I kept my part of the bargain. Take this thing out of my chest.”

  She looked at him, her eyes distant, distracted, as if noticing him for the first time. “Indubitably. But first, let a girl stretch her legs.”

  The SASS collapsed. The chain-link fencing shuddered, the polyurethane coating bubbling and cracking off, the metal first rusting, then melting, then blowing apart. The wooden towers sagged, wet-looking, and finally collapsed into black sludge that pooled in stinking bogs. The schoolhouse collapsed with the wet sound of
a smashed cantaloupe. The guards writhed, then stopped screaming, their flesh turning transparent, then black, then fluid, seeping into the ground to leave purple skeletons, which soon followed suit, dissipating into a runny yellowish slime the color of turned egg yolks. A few fell from the heights of the parapets, silent, rotting as they went, splattering on the hard ground in sulfurous puffs. Britton tried to count the dead. Had they said she’d killed twenty? There must have been fifty gone at a stroke. The Suppressor he’d kicked into unconsciousness was reduced to a puddle of human sludge. Not a guard was alive as far as he could see. Britton’s stomach spasmed in horror.

  You did this, he said to himself. You let her go.

  The Quonset huts, with the enrollees inside, so far as Britton could tell, were untouched.

  Scylla strode toward Salamander, still whole and vomiting on the ground, clawing at his belly.

  “I told you,” she crooned to him. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you that this was coming.”

  “Oh, God,” the major managed, his feet kicking out. He vomited again, all blood this time.

  “Scylla!” Britton shouted. “Stop it! Jesus! This wasn’t the deal! You were supposed to take the bomb out!”

  “And I will,” Scylla said. “Just as soon as I’m finished here.

  “I’m going to leave you alive,” she said to Salamander. “Do you know that? First, I’m going to mix up your guts so that no Healer can ever fix them quite right, then I’m going to waltz out of here right in front of your face, so you can see what comes of trying to hold your betters.”

  Salamander’s mouth worked, he was trying to speak, but nothing came out save for the thick liquid, black now, leaking from the corner of his mouth.

  Britton shuddered. You knew this would happen. This is your fault. His eyes swept the fetid pools that had once been people, his mind already stretching to accept their deaths on his conscience. The only thing he could do was put a stop to it. Did the rest of the FOB yet know what had happened here? Would they set off the ATTD? At this point, would it be more than he deserved? How many dead because of him? He couldn’t permit himself to think about it.